413 Anastasia Volkova - Building the world's largest MRV provider

The only fields that are standing, the only ground that you can work and get out on are those that are regenerative. So we check in with this MRV pioneer and successful entrepreneur why they are merging with the leading Latin player. Last time we talked five years ago, they also just merged. We talk about the current state of MRV who's paying, who isn't, who's doubling down on remote sensing and who's investing in resilient agriculture. And what do the current wars everywhere? We are recording this in the middle of March 26th when the Iran War is in full swing. Mean for resilient agriculture and the investments needed to unlock this. We talked just as we did five years ago about fertilizer and a double role it plays. In the global north we can easily, not saying it's easy, but easily, cut 70% yes you heard it right 7070 without meaning for yield drops. But in the global south it's often desperately needed in many places and with the current prices it's going to be unaffordable. They're exploding and the energy cost make it very very difficult to produce and to even get it somewhere. And we talk AI and its ability to unlock the insights from large and cleaned up data sets. And why is she stepping into a more living systems thinking? And if very optimistic about watershed scale regeneration is almost really almost at our fingertips. Enjoy. AI for Soil Health is funded by the European Union and has received funds from the UK research and innovation under the UK government horizon Europe funding guarantee. For more information visit aiforsoilz.eu or find the link below. Welcome to another episode today with an AI powered platform to make agriculture resilient. Welcome back Anastasia. Thank you so much for having me. It's incredible to be back after so long. Yeah it's been I checked five years so March at the end of March 21 we talked and already. I don't think that the AI was already part of it but wasn't so prominent of course now we live in a island but definitely the resilient part was absolutely part of the conversation was part of the website was part of the let's say the language you've been using for a long time and I think many people started to catch up on that a bit. We're recording this in the middle of a very disruptive war in the Middle East and many other places and so we'll definitely touch upon that from a fertilizer perspective which you mentioned last time quite a few times and from just the resilience and dependency and freedom perspective as well. Just welcome back on the podcast you're still around as a company which is not an easy thing actually. How and you are calling in actually with a very specific exciting news as well so let's start with that what brings you on now we could have recorded this check in also in a couple of months but actually the timing is very is very relevant what's happening at regrow and why is it so relevant to be back on the podcast at the vote. Yes, really excited to share some news we have been looking at the M&A space for the last nine months. I've reflected on that earlier today in preparation for our conversation today pretty much since early summer last year 2025 we started looking at opportunities for inorganic growth recognizing that the way that markets are shifting and bringing a lot of uncertainty which is companies to think differently about their growth and we are at a point where we are happy to announce a merger with a company that we're very excited to partner with it's with platform of Puma and the company does in our v in similar ways to regrow but it has very similar DNA but has come up with different complimentary products so we're very proud to bring Latin American market leader into the regrow family to cover global supply chains especially is Latin America becomes more and more important as a supply and sourcing region for a lot of European companies that are driving the agenda around sustainability and resilience on top of that we're adding coverage for biofuel verticals which is also growing and it's important at regrow we had some fundamental quantification through the D&T sea model that we use into biofuels but Puma extends it in another extension that we're really excited about is the extension to livestock so again regrow has a few projects in livestock and our IP and modeling but it's great to have a platform that enables the farmer transition inclusion of livestock back on the land to be available and we're looking forward to integrating the company and integrating the teams and offering the solution to our global group of customers which some of them already shared so this merger really felt like it was on the cards for the customers for the universe and for ourselves and do you see that as a you're you said I'm started reflecting about six months ago into let's in the summer and starting to see what were signals for that I think we've seen some interesting movements in the space in general MRV space specifically as well there some customers really doubling down and some others I would know quote-unquote tourist leaving there's a lot of flux what triggered for you that reflection in the summer what was something that okay let's see where we're going and in the other ways to partner emerge and do some acquisitions in the space to to be in a better position and maybe some other of the colleagues let's say are also looking to do that and not just all be by yourself like what triggered that that sort of reflection period over the summer so it's not a secret that at the beginning of last year US has shifted its possession on investment to sustainability and resilience as well as put a lot of focus on international trade through revision of the tariffs and so a lot of the companies were in that turmoil that followed for six to nine months the result the attention was drawn away from investment in the core resilience of supply chains on the farm level some companies stayed and some companies stayed and doubled down well some others companies and teams like you said maybe pulled back or put it on the slow burner on the cooktop and for us what that meant when we were looking at our P&L when we're looking at our impact metrics were becwered but it's really important for us to continue to fallacy to facilitate change will want to see in the world it's an our mission statement transition agricultural acres towards resilience when we were reflecting on what it grow in and what is working we saw that the projects that already have a strong base and very strong commitments from off-takers were continuing to grow maybe they were growing less aggressively than we would have hoped or expected but they were still growing and so our realization from that observation was that in acquiring a growth base that already is established in a different region we can accelerate this a creative return on investments into our platform in science because mrv in our vision needs to be a standard ideally a global standard maybe there's a couple of providers but ultimately we're getting to a point where we will have clarity on mrv standards in the same way that there's gap accounting and other attacks of accounting around the world everyone knows how to read a cash flow model when it gets sent to you when it's in that accounting standard and so similarly we believe in that future for the mrv in order to actually implement it we need to add coverage in geographies where we currently either are slowly developing a need acceleration or are not able to penetrate due to local specifics i'm European but i went to latin america first time earlier this year uh build my ofo co-founder through our previous eminactivity he has been trying to develop business in brisill in those relationships academically they're fantastic but commercially it has been relatively slow i want to be transparent as i usually am and we saw an opportunity that instead of slowly continuing to do what we've been trying to do and develop it from afar what's the opportunity to partner with the local leader that wants to grow and has the same aspirations has the same mission and values around the customer satisfaction the farmer success the supply chain focus and resilience as an outcome all of those points really brought us into the evaluation of the number of companies globally it wasn't just like in america that we started to look at well we looked at a number of small organizations large organizations and any investment bank who can tell you how to run that type of mene process like a CRM you create a list of companies that could be good targets you start talking to them and to the network to understand what could be a good fit and we had a couple of conversations that germinated in different stages we've gone down this path with a few companies to try to evaluate if it's a good fit commercially if there are synergies operationally if there are synergies in investment wise return on investment and we saw the most empowering synergies for both sides to be with poor one and that's how we landed on this partnership that we're so excited about and now coming to the current turmoil we're in or the current without saying I told you so which for sure you're internally are saying a few times have people been knocking on your door or what that we're still in the middle of the shock basically our fertilizer price and going absolutely through the roof we don't know how long that's going to stay nobody knows when you're listening to this it might be very different but imagine where I did recording this in the middle of March and 2026 and it's definitely crisis in many ways what the last years with the push with the pullback from the US for not focusing on sustainability necessarily anymore and you've been always saying resilience resilience is the word to drive but have you seen let me ask personally what is different five years ago to now in terms of customers that were who's buying who's who's stopped buying maybe what are the most interesting ways we talked a lot about water last time as well and fertiliser, like where are the most important pieces of your world? work, let's say, and what is really starting to develop further and what maybe hasn't so much as we hope to, by the first incredible, or something like what hasn't really taken off. So what's it been taking off over the last five years? And then we get it today. Maybe that's a bit too fresh, yes, but we'll see where we go with that. So what has been working well and what hasn't so much, let's say, the last five years. Are you interested in learning more about our generation re-investment syndicate? Where are our aim is to make investments into regenerative food and agriculture companies more accessible for everyday investors, with a minimum ticket being 1000. We have invested in companies across the region ecosystem like Ryze Core, Wild Farm, Matt Capitol, Rumi, NoFence, Hunters, AntlerBio, RegenRate, and many, many more. Find out more on jen-re.land, that is jen-re.land, or in the links below. What has worked phenomenally well is the global alignment around the TCO2E as a metric. So total tons of carbon equivalent that are sequestered or abated. That to me is truly phenomenal, given how complex this matter is. And we're recording this on the co-tails of the release of LSRS now as a standard, not as a guidance that encourages everybody to start looking at removals. And that was for a layman, if you walk us through that in a few sentences, what should we know or what should we recognize? Before we all start googling or geminiing or chatting. That's right. Well, effectively companies were leaving out the portion of solar-gaining carbon impact from the projects that they were funding because there was weak or unclear guidance around how to actually account for that. Now that we have much clearer guidance, it's still not done, but I'm very grateful what they've gotten it to already. Four number of projects is completely getting changing because maybe if you're in grassland, radging, those are the only things that you can really ruin scale. We have also now more opportunities to do it. So it's not just through direct sampling, which is of course, is a good tool at a right scale, at a huge scale. It's not possible to soil sample every single hectare. And so what you're starting to do is measure and model. And that starts being a cost effective, scalable, and scientifically viable to fund projects in the basis of a more comprehensive outcomes. And of course, this is what's the driver for the farmer as well. They want to make sure that the soil can grow back effectively and regenerate itself. And you can see it when the farm's adjacent to regenerative. You can put in the shovel and or do it for the machinery so you can get more soil out. But you can see the top layers completely changed the infiltration rate being completely different. And as you were saying, nutrient demand, so nitrogen being completely different and you're starting to get off the treadmill every year, you're implement regenerative. What have we seen also working? Is there recognition of MRV? To me, I was hoping this would be the case. But the fact that this acronym is used by governments all around the world in facilitating the ecosystem service markets is very promising. We're now the first ones in kind of a small category that we're building an agriculture and food. We're now the first ones in the world to use the concept of MRV. It was used as MNV in energy space before because we're a lot clearer in how to do it in the building because it's a built environment. We can measure things as understandable. It's not quite as directly impacted as nature based environments, such as a farm. So those are the things that I think looking back and five years ago, I was hoping that they would happen, but they actually did happen in a big way. What also happened halfway through this period almost now or in a tail end of this period is that a number of folks that were thinking this was promising but weren't quite committed to it long-term or weren't quite focused or reached enough scale actually are starting to fizzle out. And as you started in the episode, it actually is pretty tough to have your startup get to now almost 10 years and more than six months will be 10 and that is a huge milestone. And since the beginning, since the founding of the company, I have kept saying that in 2027 will be inevitable because I believe that is close enough to 2030. And if we survived that long and that far, we have come, we have the platform that steady the customers that are supporting this and we've built scale. Ultimately, that's partly what M&A is about getting to scale where we can do this so operationally efficiently because we have all the projects that are consistent enough for the old acquaintance consistent enough. Now, to you all the question, what has not been working as well? There are only a few countries where you can actually issue water credits and biodiversity credits according to schemes that are recognized by the government which really is fundamental. The regulation should be seen as an enabler and private industry says all the time I was in two very high profile industry meetings this week and last week and industries across the board are saying we want regulation because we want clarity on how to invest in something in nature and water needed pretty badly. If you look at the UK, this is a space in which you have regulatory framework that you have guidance to be 10% nation positive on every project that gets built. And so the farmer can actually participate in the economy that's boosted by it to plant biodiversity zones like pollinated habitats or to restore wetlands and it's hugely beneficial to our ecosystem in a number of ways. But do we see that market globally expanded? It's starting in Europe but we still do not have full alignment on neither the regulatory space nor the metrics. So I'm encouraged where we've gotten to with carbon with now CRCF in Europe trying to bring even more structure to it and more validity. But I think the same needs to happen for water and nature because there is a layer path to doing it scientifically, to quantification of it. But if there's no alignment in the industry around what metrics we're using, then it's much harder to scale economically. If we use just one metric for carbon and sure we can break it down into all the different gases and removals and reductions and all of that technical jargon that is important for climate. But big picture consumer interest needs to be just trending in the right direction. When you look at water and biodiversity, there is no consistency. Are you counting turtles on the island or are you counting birds? Are you doing DNA samples of the top soil? Well, what about water? There's so many different metrics as well. I'll pause here. I am very much looking forward to that alignment because I think that can bring more holistic investment into the space and I'll leave the things I'm ever really excited about for your later question. I think wait, one second, there's a head for us that came into mind. I should be back. Can you say, "Hermi?" Okay. Yeah, I hear you well. Oh, it's not in the head for us because I hear the sheep back. No, it's not in the head for us. No, it's back. Yeah, my head for us switched on in another room and took me over. Let me just make sure that these settings are back to where they should be, yes, then. And bring us back to the current, I have questions about M&A, but I'm just thinking, it's super fresh. I don't know how much you thought about it, but the current disrupting or disruptions we see with potential future ones. I think if we're fair, I think in this five-year period, we had a Suez Canal blockage by accident, but it showed us fragility. We of course had a war or have a war in Ukraine, which send up prices, but not even as much as now here. There's a lot of things have happened in five years, and let's hope that doesn't happen in X5, but chances are they will, because we live in a very fragile, poly-crisis world. What are your views on that, specifically on agriculture and food? Is that starting to make people lean into resilience in a different way that we've seen? Like a nice-to-have, no, it's actually fundamental. Is there a tone change? Have you sense a tone change in all the meetings you're in, the high-profile ones you're meeting, also in general with customers, with clients, with farmers? That this is maybe the new normal, unfortunately. We are very grateful for the support of the Investing and Regenerative Agriculture and Food Podcast Field Builder Circle, which currently consists of planetary ventures, as-align partners and fractal ag. For more information, visit investinginregenerativeagriculture.com. I think there's a couple of aspects here that are a little bit hard for the industry to reconcile. So I would give you a couple of examples of what's actually happening. So we might not be thinking about it too much, but part of crops that we're growing goes to fish feed and making sure we have alternative sources of protein because the morning consumer understands that the dimensional farming of in-protein systems is particularly troubling unless it's certified and clear and transparent. And so the morning consumer is actively moving away from red meat and meat sources of protein towards fish and seafood. And what we're seeing there, that the global suppliers are actually pretty impacted by this as canal blockage because you really need to ship something from India all the way around Africa into Europe. And how will that impact the consumer given that the processor now needs to pay a much higher price for transportation for no fault of its own for completely forced measure as far as his contract is concerned. But yet they will have to absorb that margin because we want to protect the consumer. But I think at some point you start actually pointing the consumer to it so that the consumer can get more educated around why it's not only really important to attract us or see to support local because you have much less supply chain disruption if all of it is local. In many cases it's important to start getting informed and actually understand and look into the impact of climate change and global disruptions on the food system. There's only a few, there are only a few studies globally that actually demonstrate the link and that was one in the UK. But usually these numbers are heavily abstracted and so we're doing ourselves in a way a disservice. So we have a machine that's supporting us and it looks like subsidies and it makes sure that even if there is a loss of agricultural productivity, the farmers are supported and then we actually have to buy the commodity elsewhere. But food companies and traders and processors deal with that right now and have to absorb it. We still see the final outcome of it. We'll grow the rising food prices, the rising commodity prices, but we're not linking it directly and what's challenging with the political will and the window of political action is to thread the needle on initiatives that have longer term value and I see more of that will in Europe to think beyond just the five years of electorate and think about more generationally and working hard to align the industry and the public finance together with private and philanthropic sector. Everyone wants the same thing. Ultimately resilience, why that's so important, just a quick cameo for that really important concept is that currently we're paying almost an insurance payout for something that's not working in agriculture. And so the farmers do not want to depend as much on subsidies or insurance or cannot access it are actually a lot more willing and able to transition to regenerative agriculture because they feel there is a need to do so and it looks very different in different regions around the world. I'm sure the listeners know they've been with us for over five years. We've been talking about. But when you look at the concept of resilience truly, what do we want a society? We want to have access to healthy nutritious food that comes from healthy nutritious ideally, well grown ingredients that are also good for the planet. And all of those actually stack really well. The regenerative is healthier for the planet and for the human gut, more nutritious, but we're still trapped in a system that is paying for conventional farming to be incentivized. In some countries, so incentivized that they are unable to transition to regenerative, they're willing, they're interested, but realistically the financial system currently doesn't support them like federal crop insurance in the US needs a reform to be able to align the public dollar with the outcome that's good for the farmer and for the planet. At regroad, we've looked at so much data over the years. It's country by country now. It's every year is a 50 year event. Just think about that. The last six years every year, we have an event that has a probability of one of 50 years and it's a flood or a drought or a prolonged period or both. And the only fields that are standing, the only ground that you can work and get out on are those that are regenerative. And so we're starting to find out. That notion just to come back to that notion, I think, hasn't landed with so many yet. Like we still have that, does this stuff actually work conversation wide a lot, like surprisingly a lot. And you're saying with the data, with the work you do with clients, that's the only field that you can get into as quickly as you need. The only stuff you can harvest in these 50 year events that happen every year are regenerative. On whatever spectrum we can have an end. A huge probability of regenerative practice to ability to withstand those events with high-yield stability, equal at yield resilience or the ability to plan to begin with because with these increased floods, you get prevent planned, you cannot get out onto the ground and work it. Which is, were you debt confident five years ago of that data? Well, Bill's side of the company when we were emerging in 2021 and in-house and they had some studies because in 2019, this massive US flood and I was actually going through it, like physically. I was on the bus with Australian trade delegation, where we're in the Midwest, several feet in water with no bus. We actually need to be sure. It must be interesting, it's really serious. Because that, like Australia came there to see, came to see how it's done, let's say, in Eversary, okay, this is not necessarily how it's done, but there's a field that's very interesting. This is how it could be done. That's right. It seems like it's working somewhere, but what is it not working over there? When you look back from that time, you see the practice adoption and correlation with the ability to grow with stand these shocks. The data has been pretty clear since 2018. My big picture is summarizing comment on resilience and the shock absorption of the system was going to be that the reason why we're not adapting this quickly is because there's a whole system that's supporting the common, generally adopted way of doing things that when you to transition because it becomes financially non-viable. When you are looking at true resilience on the ground, now we don't have to talk to everybody about 2019 flood in the US, whilst they're sitting in the UK. I was in the UK yesterday and we were, I was telling them about what happened to them because every single year I can pick an event. Let's look at your drought last year and that was the most dismal, atrocious, harvest, lowest on record in 86 years and here are the fields that did not have that issue. Let's look at the year before when you had flood and 10% of wheat was not able to get planted in all of the industry and other on effects in the supply chain that led to now, unfortunately, due to polycrisis. I do not have to look that far to point someone to the data and we actually work very hard with regulators and NGOs to share our data and aggregate scale without exposing anybody without showing exact farms at the county levels, at the watershed levels, two policy makers to help them drive the decisions and drive alignment because facts can speak for themselves in these maps. Which actually brings up a question on the open sourceness, that's not a word, but I made it up. All this data, like how far do you go to drive that, of course, not revealing anything, but there is a regulated might also want to see, actually, we would love to see who is contributing the most to this flood or a rate letter which farms or which places within the watershed should we intervene first. Like where do you draw that line, of course, it depends. But in terms of, okay, we have this data, a lot of this remote sensing data. We talked about it a lot last time. You're fighting the clouds, but you can go through radar. There are some more commercial satellites. You have to pay more for it. There's quite a few open ones. So you're stacking together all different layers. So where does it stop in that sense of privacy and open sourcedness when can farmers do themselves, actually, I would like to see my field compared to the neighbor. What's that relationship with data and privacy and open sourced? Yeah. So I believe we had a very healthy relationship and privacy and open sourced that still enables us to be the business that wants to see themselves be the change, be the change that wants to be because fundamentally, our theory of change is that if we're able to unlock by accessing them through measurement, the incentive for every part of the supply chain, then each part will evolve in a way that plays its corresponding role in transitioning us to reveal. That's what we truly believe in. That's where we stay in our lane, being in the NMRV, being the supporting partner, being an expert that coaches folks and how to do it. And the one that comes with the data and tries to help build ROI models in these stories as to why it matters. So because we're dealing with so much geospatial data, trillions, we monitor now 52% of the world's arable land. It's over 1.5 billion acres, which is staggering numbers compared to what I would have thought we were capable of doing five years ago. Again, a lot of AI in every year, some parts of the system get cheaper, some parts get more complex and we continue to invest, but some parts of it get cheaper. And it's really encouraging to me because it means we'll be able to ultimately get to a new, dismal cost of MMRV and get this to every product. I believe so. Even what we've seen in the last four months, we've the releases of the recent AI models, what they enable us to do and how much faster they're enabling us to draw insights from our data. This has never been so accessible and so informative because we've worked so hard to make sure that data is good and we're continuing to work in nothing's perfect. Every company and ours to, we make mistakes, we sell customers when we do, we have to make it good and make sure that the client is good. that impact is right in the right direction with every action we take. But I think as a business, as a CEO of a baby business that is trying to contribute to a massive industry, much larger than itself, we have the responsibility to make sure it's at all times financially viable. And to me, this transformation is extremely exciting. And that's what partly enables the strategic partnerships in M&A because we're now able to bring the technology to more places faster by leveraging AI. Yeah, I think in the next two, three years, you and I can't even imagine what's going to happen if you can structure and enable that data access into the right place. But back to your question about data privacy and data exposure. So we did not have information on who farms what land, because we look at it from satellite pictures, until the farmer comes in and rolls into one of the programs offered by our corporate partners. Yeah, and says here, this is me. Yeah. And says, here are my fields. I'm going to pick the mom, you map. And I'm going to tell you where you're maybe had low confidence, like you were saying, the recloudie satellite pictures, you didn't know when I planted my cover crop and winter, I can tell you, here's my machinery file and so on and so forth. That only happens when the farmer actually engages directly and we really encouraged them too, because we're trying to bring incentives to them. That is the entire business model that we've established five years ago that farmers instead of paying for software and enrolling in it can get the benefit of payments by providing some additional data that improves the quality of the model and drives a better outcome for them. Now, this data taken an aggregate and sliced in a much coarse or spatial resolution. As I was saying in the US, it could be Hux, it could be counties and contons and what a shed in Europe and in other places, region states, territories, you name it. Basically, it's a spatial resolution of a district that we consider to be consistent from climatic and soil and other parameters that it's relevant to look at it together. I can tell you that level of resolution is screaming inside, it said you. If you see two neighbor districts and they perform very differently because of the policy, you will be able to see it so clearly on the map. So we clearly terraformed this place. It's not because farmers here feel the need to use more phosphorus. Well, we've actually incentivized these other farmers to cut their use of phosphorus and look. They actually are performing quite well. And it's important to not just look at the emissions profile, but also the stability and productivity because the food security issue will become more central. And maybe I was a little bit more veiled about it five years ago as a Ukrainian before the war that we have now. But now we're sitting here. We have three wars at the same time. The ones that are in the news all the time. There's also dozens that are not in the news all the time. And the fertilizer prices impact the people who are most dependent on them. So I'm concerned that it's going to impact Africa the most. Because this is where fertilizer is imported. This is where it's needed the most to boost productivity, but it's not affordable anymore. So what that's going to mean because the farmers in the developed west can absolutely safely cut their use of synthetic nitrogen without much of the yield loss. And there's plenty of programs from commercial partners in the market to help them get on with this idea whether it's yield warranties that the companies are starting to offer. It's very innovative. It's a fantastic structure. People interested they can look into that. But when we're looking at policy decisions, they're glaring from this map back at you. And so obviously we want to inform these decisions on how they're being made and taken. For example, for the news key once here CF, how will the baselines be decided? Is it really feasible that European Union without use of silatimetry, without use of AI will have access to an up to date information on the practice adoption just by data collection through the subsidy scheme that potentially is insufficient. In my view, it's also inefficient. And so if you can be smarter at closing the loop, ultimately we are using ESA data from Copernicus program to people. Which are both European programs. A lot of these insights can do the full circle value creation attribution. And I'm hoping that's where there is being space agency and European Commission will go with it because we need a pulse on the planet. It's literally on fire. It's overheating, over flooding. There are challenges, but there are also solutions and we can see them. And hence if we can adopt them, we'll be more efficient with public finance. Of course, then there'll still be problems of adoption and having us all in one room to agree. It's never easy, but humanity can do it. I have faith. And it's interesting you mentioned specifically on in Africa. We hear already stories from William Belay and we had on the podcast we're doing a full Africa series at the moment of fertilizer prices. In general, I think our like three X in landlock countries in Africa, Uganda, etc. And if you even get it, and last time we noticed with the attack on Ukraine, Ukraine, the prices spiked and even were canceled. Like fertilizer won't find his way to Pakistan into other places because other countries are just buying it. So even I just had a farmer on this morning and say if you can even get it, like there's a question, like there's a question of payment. If you have the money, which many people don't, and then even the question if it gets ever gets delivered. So we were being pushed into an extreme situation there as well. But in at least the global North, we have a lot of programs. We can safely cut. We're over over applying everywhere. Most people not everyone don't get it. Don't send me angry messages now. But you can safely cut I think 30, 40% and there are a lot of programs to push that down way further. If you look at the A.R. reports, I think 70, most of their farms are the 70, 80% reduction. And if you do that in a managed way, it's probably very resilient. Like it helps your resilience a lot, but we shouldn't forget. And on this point that you just mentioned, because we've done the modeling at the very beginning of the companies, nine and a half years ago, that we saw those figures of up to 80% reduction. And I'm so pleased with the work that ERA and the generous funders that are supporting that work, we're hoping to support future reports to actually scale things as well there. But it's true. Like we're seeing it first scientifically in trials and maybe in smaller samples. And then we've seen it at scale, take almost 10 years for us to get on with something that's a fact. And I'm glad that regenerative and carbon markets took only five years in the recent iteration. I'm not discounted by any means as a work of everybody who worked for the previous 15 years and making them a staple. But I think the global poly crisis will actually help us with the adoption as gruesome as it sounds. Yeah, actually was going to be a question. What do you think? Will this sort of go to look at or to predict, but will this accelerate adoption of a lot of these practices? Policies hopefully looking for ways to cut subsidies, to cut emergency spending on this, to cut fertilizer and to cut a lot of chemicals that are made with natural gas. All these prices are going to go through the roof and to look at food security, which is an interesting double. At least there's research now. We can point that look, there are pathways and you have the polychrys of climate and weather, which doesn't help with production. Are they knocking on the door already? Do you see any responses or is that too early into fresh, at least in this word that just started? I would say generally the response takes three to six to nine months to go through this system. Like last time when Trump came up or it's and yeah, you're sort of saying it takes to make the investments. Exactly. It takes a moment, but every time we experience a step change in the right direction, it's almost like we are not on knowing what we already know. And so I'm really hopeful the way that we cannot know, on know that agriculture is a meeting right now and can sequester carbon and can reduce nitrogen. This is becoming a point of general realization and common sense. The fact that you were saying, we are getting to a place where I can stand in front of an audience of asset managers like last week with the you there and present the data that is talking about the correlation between regenerative adoption and returns. And that is something that they started understanding. Even the phrase that came out that extremely encouraged me and it's very asset management language, but it's perfect. Conventional farm will likely become a stranded asset, especially if it's dependent on synthetic fertilizer. And that is brilliant. That's ultimately something that we need to see happen. And different countries have different dynamics with land management, land ownership, leasing, etc. Of course, there's a lot of complexity to that. What people do see value in land want to continue to invest is good bench marks on what the land investment creates. And land managers are more and more often a thought in order to manage the land through the regenerative transition. And so I maybe don't see it at 100 percent, but I see the leaning of the financial community and asset management towards it. I think we'll start hearing a lot about food security. We already have a huge push for local food from consumers that have the disposable income and can make that choice. Absolutely. And so I think the more we're seeing the disruption and the supply chain disruptions result in price tag changes on shelves, the more consumer will be aware the more political contingency will have to talk about it and the more they'll hopefully have to do about it. I also want to throw in something that's a little bit unconventional. So with the new sources of energy and our breakthroughs in harness and renewables, there's actually potential for Africa to have independent sources of green urea and fertilizer. And of course those developments require patience, capital, but there are fantastic startups that are working on it. And not because I'm saying let's continue with the Haber Bosch process, but because we actually have to have support where people otherwise would not be able to grow food and more than to billion people on a day to day basis, the surviving due to that process alone. And that's not in a significant number given those seven of us, seven billion altogether. So I think the transition is gradual and phases of transition for the West and other regions may look differently, but we should be seeing the trends towards national independence, more supply chain localization and pull back on that national supply. There's going to be a series of supply chains that cannot do that. We're simply non-viable. The will start the conversation about food security in a sensible policy manner where the investments have to be investment vehicles around regulatory incentives need to be re-tooled in order to actually foster security and not only just environmental benefits alone. It has to come hand in hand as demonstrated that it can be. And finally, what we'll see more actors, this is something that are very encouraged by all already that we're not just saying food companies and processors and those directly involved in the supply chain, cunning to this table and engaging, but more banks, more landowners, asset managers, maybe even finally, let's not wait five years for that insurance companies. The Holy Grail is always the insurance company. In the health discussion, it's insurance. Are they picking up the bills of many of these things? Okay. They've been looking around. We know they come to our events like our facade. They've been making investments left and right and there's a huge part of money that needs to be invested and they need to be invested in a way that makes sense for our future world to still pay insurance premiums and their payouts are going to be removed if they're directly exposed to extreme weather and they're just pulling out of regions and places. So there's a very interesting, we should do a whole series probably on that. The other point you mentioned is super interesting. Indeed. Renewable energy the last five years have just continued to plummet. The cost of that, the deployment cost. For anybody that hasn't really kept up with solar prices, for instance, and the revolution happening in East Africa with electric mobility as well. Pakistan is through the roof in terms of actually literally on the roof. In terms of solar, completely under the radar, I didn't make that panic in it. But follow some of that exponential deep tech on solar because we might be in a position relatively soon where we're going to, and already in some places, what do we do with all the solar between 12 and 3? There are curtailments like you produce more and you can't really sell it. Are we going to produce or are we going to freeze it? Are we going to run a data center? Are we going to charge the tractor? It's solar energy. Do you use something like green ammonia? Do you use the energy for some other intensive purposes? Do you have the power and the capacity to do that? But definitely countries in Asia also speaking about compute as an export. So for example, if it's a lot cheaper for you to run loads in the data center at that time, do we read or all the movies at that time or do something else that's compute intensive? What's really being thought about as an opportunity for experts given the energy transformation with renewables now unlocks this capacity? I didn't think, I've heard some farmers talk about it, I think, in the Netherlands. But the costs were still too much. But it's going to be very soon that's no longer going to be an issue. And we're going to think what to do with that extra energy. I want to be conscious of your time as well and ask one final question. What have you changed your mind about in the last five years? What has been really like? There's quite on that bandwagon, but actually doesn't work, doesn't happen. Or maybe something I'm actually super convinced about X, Y, Z, now compared to five years ago. Because it's not, we talked about the beginning of the company, like in the middle of the company and now we're at 10 years. And I'm not saying we should wait another five, but it's a nice rate of maintenance. You're almost 10. Absolutely. Okay. You will get a little confession for me. So this realization only happened late last year after we've celebrated nine. And maybe this is going to be embarrassing for me to listen to in three to five years when we do another episode, given just for listeners, Cohen and I do talk to each other more often. But apparently, we grow closer. There's important cycles that we need to update everybody on five years of the conversation. There are just like, you know, like, you're going to get. Yes. Well, maybe I'm not going to wait that long for that. I was going to ask out of the books, but that's maybe, I'm sure they are. It's an interesting landscape at the moment. That's right. I hold your horses. But I would say my realization was that maybe as Yada and ambitious as I was when I started the business, I thought that by putting energy into it almost no soul handle because it's the entire company. But our team with our customers, we could move the needle so substantially. And I think we've achieved a lot because we've recruited the biggest names in the industry to work with us. And I think we've achieved a lot together. I don't think the recognition of Rogen or Mervi or insights would have been where it's at without regrow demonstrated global scalability and the corporate partnership around it. But that was like the main vehicle as a translation of our theory of change, partner with corporate and supply chain and try to implement incentives because that will get the fly will moving. That will start trickling the water onto the mill wheel. Now, when I think the next phase will look like given it's very clear five year cut from that merger to now is actually working a lot more closely with the local communities because we've engaged the capital that is willing. I'm not saying there's not more capital than its willing, but I think in two to three years we will see a lot of companies getting off of their seats, getting up and starting to move forward because 2030 will be very close in supply chain. Disruptions will cost them more and more every year. Whilst right now there may be a fund in a small project that will be funding a much larger one. But just like what I said five years ago, I do have a lot more conviction in it now that landscape level action will actually be the next unlock that we need. And I'm finally certain to see that people do want the co benefits to do want to partner with local entities and it's not just lip service all we should partner and let's have this demagology. This is not what I'm saying when I'm saying is when you exert all that energy for ten years trying to change something that you think is good for the world and recruiting everybody in your path of trying to amass the followership. You then stop and realize that maybe there is a more efficient way of using your energy. And it is connecting the dots in the network in which things can flow more organically. And so into me this is a bit of a shift into the living systems mindset that probably took me a very long time because things that I was doing they were working. So I didn't change my mindset until they stopped working at the rate at which I wanted them to. And now I'm really excited about what that living systems mindset and finding our role in between communities and supply chain actors and folks that are financing the system. How can we unlock it? And it's an exploration. But I do believe there will be more landscape level collaborations that will come out of that and will just continue to try to be in service of all of these projects, lowering the prices and improving the quality and just keep on keeping on. We need to continue to invest in our own resilience so we can see the change we want to see. Thank you so much. I don't think there's a better way to wrap this up. I don't think it's going to be another five. Looking forward to checking on that specifically. I think landscape scale is a watershed, whatever bio regional, whatever term we want to give to it is such an interesting path and such an under under resourced and overlooked neglected any term you can come up with in such a big levers. I'm very interested. We talked about it last time as well. So figuring out what to plan where and why, what to change in a landscape. What are the nodal points? Where should we focus on and where very close? And if not, actually we are there at a level we can start asking those questions and see okay, these are the crucial points first and then the neck. Not that any farmers important, any piece of land is but some are more urgent with limited resources we need to focus somewhere and that's a system change and a living system mindset and there's a lot happening on the ground which we have to incorporate and how do you supercharge that I think is a very meaningful strategy. So thank you so much for coming on here to talk about some important news and general check in and thank you so much for the work you do. Thank you Cohen for supporting us all and excited for the listeners to tell us what they thought, comments, thoughts. And keep up with us guys, connect with us online and we're real people. We want to help if you think you have a good use of that data that I kept talking about. Please reach out. I hope there's a collaboration. You're part of the ecosystem. Let's be friends. Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end and very curious what you think of this one. We often use the word MRV but don't really go into depth with an entrepreneur in that space. Of course we'll go deeper into that around carbon in our carbon series with OGCR and really interesting to see that merges and acquisitions are happening and that even in all the north. about no sustainability, no focus on sustainability and that's all outdated and blah blah blah. That actually resilience is really driving a lot of these conversations and groups that are exposed to that and are exposed to these extreme weather events are starting to do more, luckily. So it's encouraging to see, it's an easy journey to almost 10 years in a 10 year overnight success as they like to say. But I'm really interested to follow this. There's so much we can see from space and so much we can structure better in terms of incentives and on a watershed or landscape level to figure out where to intervene, where to incentivize farmers more, to improve water quality and to really build a resilient agriculture system. Again with sandy shocks and I think the data she shared, it's very clear, like I'm looking at the quote again, the only fields that are standing, the only grounds that you can work and get out onto our dose that are regenerative. There's no word that we don't understand there. It's very clear and I think that message has to land still. Today it was on LinkedIn and so some comments read that I guess BS and blah blah don't use the term. It doesn't mean anything. I guess those people have to catch up with science and I say you're saying since 2019 you can see a lot of this data and it just gets clear and yeah, it takes five to ten years for the rest of the world to catch up. So let's hope we're close to that. I'm really curious what you thought of this episode. We recorded in the middle of the war of one of the many obviously but the Iran Wars. I don't know what happened. Of course when you listen to this but it's definitely very disruptive time in terms of fertilizer prices. Of course all the lives affected but just on the commodity side of fertilizer prices, of gas prices, energy prices and I'm afraid it's going to stay with us for a bit. So I hope you're safe and when listening to this and stay resilient, stay regenerative and focus on soil. Let us know anything you want in the comments. On social media, through the website, we read everything and yeah, let us know and as always thank you for listening and I hope to see you at the next one. This podcast is part of the A.I. 4 Soil Health project which aims to help farmers and policymakers by providing new tools powered by A.I. to monitor and predict soil health across Europe. For more information visit aiforsoilhealth.eu or find the link below.